“ Except at the Muscle Shoals in Alabama, navigation is unobstructed from the mouth of the river to Chattanooga, a distance of 450 miles. The Muscle Shoals are a series of rapids, where the river flows over limestone rocks from Florence to Decatur, a distance of 23 miles, but navigation around them has been effected by means of a canal and locks, completed by the United States Government in 1889. Above the Shoals small steamers may ascend the river to Knoxville. Besides Knoxville, the chief cities along its banks are Florence and Decatur in Alabama, and Chattanooga in Tennessee. ”